Player of the Year!
by Lizardbeth J
Summary: Kara gets a present: a tape of the terrible biopic about Samuel T. Anders. She thinks it's funny; he's less amused.


_LDYB_-fic.

* * *

Kara was never sure where it came from. The tape magically appeared in her rack after they'd come back from Caprica. The note read simply: "_Are you sure you know what you're getting into_?"

Curious, she put the tape in and settled in front of it closely, ready to switch it off if it turned out to be porn or something even more embarrassing to have in the rec room.

She only needed the first five notes of the distinctive music, and the title card, _Player of the Year!_ and she started to laugh.

Racetrack came in. "Starbuck? Hey, I could use a laugh."

Kara could only point at the screen as the young man on screen got off the train and looked at the empty station with intense disappointment. She managed to gasp out, "It's -- it's --_ Player of the Year!_."

Maggie raised her eyebrows. "And?" Then realization dawned and she looked back and forth between Kara and the screen in disbelief - "The Anders movie? You have it?"

"Anonymous present." Kara chortled some more as the actor flung his duffel bag to the ground and pouted. He looked nothing like Sam, was too short and couldn't act or play Pyramid. The best she could say was that he had adequate shoulders, if not nearly as good as Sam's.

Maggie flopped into the seat at the table to watch. Kat came in next, "Oh hey, I haven't seen this before. New movie?"

"It's bad," Maggie warned.

Kat shrugged and sprawled next to her, "Don't care. It's new." It took a minute for her to realize what it was and she burst out in disbelief, "That guy's supposed to be Anders? You gotta be frakkin' kidding me!"

Kara and Maggie joined in her laughter. Kara wished she had popcorn.

Then it got better when she heard a familiar voice behind her say in utter horror and disgust. "Oh Gods. The Colonies get nuked and **this** survived?"

She turned to see Sam staring at the screen. "I'm going to kill Hilliard," he muttered. "He brought it with him, the frakker."

Kara could only snicker at him. "He's not even in it."

"Why do you think he likes it so much? His idea of a practical joke was to sneak this in, instead of the tape we were supposed to watch at practice." He settled next to her, groaning as the actor tossed the ball around with his team-mates on the Delphi Nuggets. "Gods, I threw the ball better than this guy when I was five."

"At least the girl playing Barolay knows what she's doing." That had the unfortunate side-effect of making "Sam" look even less competent. The expression on Sam's face was deliciously pained, but she noticed even he couldn't stop watching.

"Wow, you've got such a suave way with women," she observed dryly, as the "Sam" on screen kissed the actress, and had no idea what to do with his hands so he sort of pawed at her. It was especially painful to watch now that Kara had experienced the real thing.

Maggie called, "Hey Anders. Did you really frak Maria Convibis?" Which happened later on in the movie, but apparently Maggie had managed to sit through to the part where "Sam" frakked the supermodel.

"No. But I did," he glanced at Kara and changed what he was going to say, "date her sister Daphne though. For about two weeks."

Kara snorted, not surprised. "Oh Sammy, you telling me I'm not your first frak?" she mocked.

"Not even close," he answered cheerfully, "but you're the hottest I've seen since the end of the world."

She kissed him for that, until a moment on the screen caught her eye: "Sam" getting into a hot blue sportscar. "Hey, look, your car's blue." Everybody who knew anything about Sam knew he'd bought a **yellow** Sayan Duster with his first pro check.

He shook his head and said mournfully, "I miss that car. You know, this trash couldn't get my dog right either. They even say I was born on Tauron. How can anybody get **that** wrong?" he complained and put his hands over his face as the middle-school level Pyramid continued on screen. Kara patted his shoulder, still chuckling.

The scene switched to thirty seconds of old footage from an actual game and the difference was like night and day -- they never showed Sam's face, but she knew which player was him - graceful, powerful and fast, especially for a guy his size. Then it went back to the actor for a reaction shot after the win, and Kara snorted. "You're the best part of the whole movie. I forgot how you used to be so quick."

His head jerked up, glaring at her in pretended offense. ""Used to be"? You calling me slow?"

"And old," she teased him.

He pulled her onto his lap, "I didn't hear you complaining this morning," he muttered, nuzzling under her ear while his hands - gods, such big frakkin hands- enclosed her hips and waist.

"Hey, lovebirds, shut it," Kat ordered. "We're trying to watch the movie."

He lifted his head, "We kicked Panther ass. The end." He paused for a moment and added in a tone meant to be joking, but was entirely too heavy for that, "They forgot the big Cylon bombs and everybody dying and running around in the mountains with guns. Piece of crap," he muttered, staring at the screen but not seeing it any more.

Kara decided to kiss him out of his sinking mood, and knew it was working when his hands pulled her hips down tight into his lap and he squirmed beneath her, trying to find a good angle.

Something small and soft hit her in the head and she pulled free of Sam to glare at Maggie, who had another balled up piece of paper primed to throw. 'Track just grinned at her, but in a way that suggested frakking on the couch, between her and the movie was a deadly serious offense.

Kara stood up and grabbed Sam's hand to tug him up. "Let's leave them to their crap movie about a fake version of you. I have the real thing." She made certain to grope his ass in full view of the two others before they started for the door.

She glanced over her shoulder at the movie as "Sam" put on his C-Bucs uniform for the first time. It was the same shirt that Sam was wearing today, though his was turning grey and ragged from too much wear.

For a moment it felt strange to think that this man next to her had a movie, even a bad one, about his **life**. Hell, it seemed strange that he had a life before at all, like he sprang up out of the ground at the attacks to lead the resistance against the Cylons, even though she remembered watching him play.

But then, glancing up at his face and meeting his blue eyes, she couldn't help a saucy grin and a nudge of his hip with hers, and everything fell back into how it was supposed to be, as he nudged her back and slung an arm over her shoulder.

"Come on, player of the year," she teased, "show me what you've got."

He groaned and she smirked, vowing to find something nice for Hilliard to repay him for the hours of entertainment she was going to get out of this.

_the end._


End file.
